Lila
The scream didn't fade. It stayed inside my head long after the echo died among the trees.
Hana clung to my arm, her breath hot and fast against my sleeve.
"Lila… someone's there."
I nodded slowly, though my throat felt too tight to speak. Someone else was running. Someone else had seen what we saw.
And the ground… had answered them.
The forest was quiet again, but it wasn't the quiet of peace. It was the kind that waited. The kind that listened.
"We can't stay here," I whispered.
I wasn't sure if I was saying it to Hana or to myself.
We moved carefully along the path, each step soft, testing the earth before we trusted it. I kept my eyes on the ground, half-expecting it to swell again like before. The sky above us was still dark and heavy, like the day had been paused halfway through.
Every branch that snapped under our feet made my heart jump. Every gust of wind sounded like footsteps that were not ours.
Then the tremor came.
Light. Barely there.
But real.
Hana froze, squeezing my hand so tightly I almost cried out. The next tremor rolled through the ground a heartbeat later farther away, deeper in the trees ahead of us.
The same direction as the scream.
My stomach twisted.
It didn't stay.
It went after them.
I wanted to stop. To turn back. To hide. But the path forward was the only thing that made sense anymore. Staying still meant waiting for the ground to decide when it wanted to open again.
So we followed.
Not fast. Not loud. Just moving. Breathing. Listening.
Soon the signs began to show.
A broken branch, still trembling slightly where it had snapped. A long drag mark in the dirt where someone had stumbled and been pulled upright again. Small footprints, close together. Kids.
Hana bent slowly and picked something up from beside the path.
A plastic bracelet. Bright blue. Too bright for this world.
"Somebody dropped it," Hana whispered.
I didn't say anything. We both knew. It may have been a child.
I looked at the ground where the bracelet had been lying. The soil was cracked there, just a little. As if the earth itself had lifted then settled again.
The tremors stopped after that.
The silence that followed felt heavier than the dark sky.
Hana pressed herself against my side. "Is it gone?"
I didn't answer right away. I looked ahead into the trees, into the thick shadows that swallowed the path.
"I don't know," I said quietly. "But we're not the only ones anymore."
We kept walking.
The forest held our footsteps like secrets.
And somewhere ahead of us, someone else was learning how to run.